Punjabi Cultural Council has written to the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to prevent wheat crops from the summer fires while urging him to implement the preventive measures ‘well in advance’ to stop the farmers’ losses.
The Council, aiming at stopping the burning of wheat crops and helping the farmers, has also demanded that responsibilities be fixed of the Powercom, Panchayats, Cooperation and Revenue Departments for making necessary arrangements beforehand.
“This way, adequate safeguard measures could be made before the harvesting season and government could also save millions in lieu of compensations for huge losses to the cultivators,” said the Council chairman Harjeet Singh Grewal, secretary Harman Singh Butahari and finance secretary Baljit Singh Saini, in a letter giving a set of suggestions.
They demanded that the power corporation should also be directed to ensure cleanliness under the transformers and timely repair of dangling power lines passing through the fields much before the harvesting.
Council demanded that complete monitoring and compliance of these two works should be done by the employees of concerned power station and stringent action should be taken against the negligent personnel.
Suggestion was also made that village level employees of Agriculture, Panchayats and Cooperative departments should made the farmers aware to not to plant wheat around the transformers and to repair the loose live wires in the fields.
The Council has also demanded that village panchayats should be provided with at least 10 small fire extinguishers at subsidized costs for controlling outbreak of fire. They also demanded that it should be mandatory for harvester owners to have two cylinders for using them in case of emergency and to stop the fire from flare up.
The Council suggested that social workers and philanthropists should also be engaged to donate fire extinguishers in their respective villages. Besides, water tankers should also be provided to panchayats for using them in case of any exigency while harvesting in fields.
